


A Little Excitement, If You Please

by pentacs14



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: But only if you squint, Drarry-ish, M/M, rated mature for mild language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 04:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1102504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pentacs14/pseuds/pentacs14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco runs a tiny dusty apothecary on the outskirts of society. Life is routine, tedious, and utterly boring... except when a certain Auror Potter shows up looking for a favor. Then all bets are off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Excitement, If You Please

**Author's Note:**

> Usual disclaimer: Do not own, am not making any profit, etc. Do not read if you have issues with boys checking out other boys.
> 
> Not really sure where this is going but possibility of more chapters in the distant future. Can be read alone as a bit of lighthearted fluff.

Draco Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose in a desperate bid to marshal his rapidly fraying nerves.

"Far be it from me to tell you that yellow is not an acceptable color to be," he tried mildly, "but maybe a trip to St. Mungo's wouldn't be entirely out of order. Then perhaps it wouldn't be necessary for you to buy out my entire stock of milk thistle every week."

The man in question leaned over and stabbed a thick finger into the air belligerently. "If you would do your damn job and order enough in this wouldn't be a problem."

"I tripled my last order!" Draco snapped, fed up with trying to be polite. "Which, incidentally, was triple the previous one. Pretty soon I'll be buying it by the damn field full and you'll still look like a sodding buttercup."

"I don't have to come here, you know," the man snarled back. "I could get this stuff from any half decent supplier and not have to put up with you and your shit."

Draco took a deep breath and counted to ten. Twice. "You're right," he said evenly. "That was unacceptable of me and I apologize. I'm sure you would be much happier taking your business to one of my colleagues a little further down the road." 

"Maybe I would," was the petulant reply.

"They would, no doubt, sell you as much milk thistle as your heart desired without all the pesky concerns about your health," Draco offered before continuing snidely. "Good luck retaining any use of your liver, by the way. Maybe they can supply you with one of those while you're at it."

"I am never setting foot in this place again," the man roared as he stomped to the door. "I'll buy all the milk thistle I want at Slug & Jiggers!"

"Yeah? Well, good fucking riddance!" Draco shouted after him. "And I hope you choke on it."

He jabbed his wand at the door to flip the sign over to closed, only briefly entertaining the idea of hexing the man's balls off. That would get the asshole to St. Mungo's in a heartbeat, Draco was sure, but would probably end with him decorating a cell in Azkaban and that was simply not on. No matter how satisfying it would be.

It was rather early to be closing up shop for the day but the majority of Draco's business came from owl post or floo orders so it wasn't like he was cutting into his profit margin or anything. Tucked into a dark corner on the far end of Diagon Alley he saw very little foot traffic and sometimes went entire days without a single walk-in customer.

That suited him up one side and down the other if he was perfectly honest. He had very little patience to begin with and being confronted with the stupidity of the masses seemed to erode what little control he had over his caustic tongue and blunt nature.

Draco slumped forward until his forehead thumped hollowly on the worn counter top and threaded his hands in the hair at the back of his head in an attempt to keep from smashing something. He wondered for the thousandth time what on earth he had been thinking to believe that gainful employment would be a good idea. 

He could have hidden in the manor and lived off of the family coffers - depleted from reparations after the war but in no way gone - refusing to rejoin society like his mother had done and most of the wizarding world would prefer he do. Or he could have become an aristocratic wastrel who was never sober long enough to realize that he was universally hated which is what his few remaining friends seemed intent on convincing him to do.

Or maybe he could have marshaled the Malfoy arrogance and manipulated his way into a high profile job at the ministry that would have forced people to realize that his family was still something to be reckoned with like his father would have preferred. Or he could have become a professional Quidditch player and captured the hearts of millions with his troubled past and bad boy image like he had briefly entertained as an adolescent.

Instead he had opened this tiny little potions shop in honor of his godfather with its peeling paint, potions paraphernalia and painfully industrious spider population. Every day he made the rounds dismantling the vast network of webs that had sprung up overnight and trying to shoo the vermin out of the way so he could got on with things and every morning they were as thick and numerous as ever.

Add to that the legion of patrons that were always right even when they were so very wrong and the excessive number of 'surprise' inspections from the Ministry - really, three in the same day? how stupid did they think he was? - and Draco was rapidly becoming as cross and ornery as Severus himself. Draco knew it was only a matter of time before he started referring to his clientele as insufferable dunderheads and the sneering inspectors as something much worse.

His life was stagnating around him and yet he refused to give in and slink back to his supposed proper place. Draco was a Malfoy through and through - with all the stubborn pride that implied - and nothing short of torture could force him to admit that he wasn't deliriously happy with how things were working out. Even if he was driving himself to an early grave.

Everyone had told him he was a fool, that whatever it was he was looking for he was not going to find it in this pokey little shop full of dusty bottles, barrels of ingredients and kitschy crap, but he had ignored them all. And now he was as trapped as the flies that fluttered desperately in the confines of their spider-silk prisons.

He despised the knowing little glances that Blaise and Pansy loved to share whenever he became bored or desperate enough to attend some soiree or social function thrown by the old guard. He despised the fact that only good breeding kept them from saying 'I told you so' to his face and he especially despised the fact that they were right, dammit. He was a bloody fool, yearning for something even as he hid himself away in a dark corner of a bright bustling world that was passing him.

The sound of the cheerful little bell that hung over his door was like pouring hot acid into an open wound and Draco flinched; forgetting for a moment his fingers were still tangled in his hair and accidentally ripping several strands out.

"Are you blind or just fucking illiterate?" he snarled at whoever had been stupid enough to interrupt what was turning into a monumental sulk. "The sign says fucking closed!"

"Tsk, tsk," a highly amused voice reached his ears.

Draco groaned and buried his face in his hands. Could this day get any worse?

"Is that any way to treat a potential customer?" the voice asked mockingly.

"A potential customer, my arse," he declared darkly. "You wouldn't know the difference between a Wiggenweld potion and an Elixir of Grindelia if one of them hopped up and down in front of you and the other one bit you on your arse."

"Hey, that's not true. That Wiggenweld one can wake people up and the elixir thing, uhm... Is blue? Or it turns you blue. Something like that."

"Seriously, Potter?" Draco asked in disbelief. "A Wiggenweld potion completely resets your thaumaturgical system and as such it has been known to jolt people out of magically-induced comas but it's not a bloody Wideye potion." 

He propped an elbow on the counter and rested his chin in his hand as he watched the half-hidden wizard make his way through the maze of shelves. 

"And the only reason you ought to be turning blue in proximity to an Elixir of Grindelia," he continued wearily, "is if you have a really vicious case of Dragon Pox Fever or a some other affliction that causes you to cough until you're blue in the face." He paused. "A symptom it was designed to treat." He paused again. "And it's colorless."

"Close enough," Harry said with an unconcerned shrug as he finally appeared around a corner and came into sight.

Draco shook his head. "It is a source of never ending wonder to me that you can actually walk into this building without being struck by lightning."

"Funny, I think almost the exact same thing whenever Ron enters a library."

"That's because Weasley's head is so full of cotton wool it acts as an insulator," Draco muttered snarkily. "He couldn't electrocute himself if he tried."

Harry laughed and Draco stared fixedly at the far wall, refusing to think about how warm that sound made him feel.

"I also think it whenever I hear muggle words coming out of your mouth," Harry said with a smirk.

"What the hell are you doing here, Potter?" Draco demanded mildly. Well, almost mildly.

Harry regarded him with a smile and an amused tilt of his head. "You said I could drop by anytime." The man tried for a soulful pout and failed miserably. "Remember?" 

Draco regarded the ceiling contemplatively, a huff of breath fluttering his fringe. "I remember saying that," he replied finally. "I just can't for the life of me remember why."

"Maybe it was my charming wit and sparkling personality?" The smile was back and had evolved into an impish grin.

"No..." Draco drawled. "I don't believe that was it."

"So it must have been my gorgeous body and firm arse," Harry offered with a full-on smirk and a twinkle in his eye that would have rivaled Dumbledore at his most outrageous.

"Hmm, that's much more plausible. Another possibility being temporary insanity on my part."

"Well, on the plus side," Harry offered magnanimously, "I may not have had the benefits of a formal upbringing in a pure-blood household but I do have some social skills. I didn't come empty-handed."

Draco regarded the grinning man narrowly until a disposable drink tray floated out from behind him with several styrofoam cups boasting the logo of his favorite muggle coffee shop nestled securely within.

"You are a god among wizards," he declared before eagerly snatching up one of the containers and ripping off the lid to inhale the fragrant steam.

A rapturous groan escaped him at the first sip, the taste of coffee, chocolate and hazelnut exploding over his tongue like a benediction. Anyone who knew Draco knew that his one true vice (aside from his caustic sense of humor and biting wit) was flavored coffee. Harry's eyes crinkled up in amusement as he took in the normally aloof and ever-disdainful wizard's antics.

"I do hear that fairly often but rarely outside the bedroom," Harry responded. He laughed delightedly when Draco rolled his eyes, too interested in the contents of his cup to make an appropriately snarky comment.

Draco took another sip before eyeing the tray suspiciously. "You expecting company?" he asked.

"Nope." Harry snagged one cup and set the tray with its additional drinks on the counter. "The rest are all yours."

Draco's eyes narrowed further. "Why does this feel like a bribe," he demanded.

"Probably because it is one," Harry offered without even trying to hide his amusement.

"Potter, I still haven't recovered from the last time you asked me for help," Draco moaned.

"Hence the bribe."

"Does Kingsley know you're here?" he asked, stalling for time.

The newly appointed Minister of Magic hadn't been overly pleased when he realized who the new potions consultant Harry had placed on payroll was but Harry had a way of railroading right over the top of people while simultaneously wrapping them around his little finger.

Never in a million years would Draco willingly admit that he numbered among those taken in by Harry's boyish smile and naive charm but at least he wasn't the only Malfoy smitten with the Golden Menace. Harry and Narcissa had developed an unconventional and yet enduring bond in the years since the war.

The first time Draco had heard his mother laugh since Lucius was sentenced to a life in Azkaban had been at a quip of Harry's regarding those damnable albino peacocks of his father's – the same peacocks that had tormented his boyhood and caused him to despise anything with a beak - as the three of them took tea in the manor's sumptuous rose gardens.

It was for that reason and that reason alone, he insisted adamantly, that he put up with Harry's nonsense. It certainly had nothing to do with how quiet and empty his life seemed whenever the Ministry's Wunderkind was busy on a case and couldn't stop by for a while.

"Nope," Harry said again with supreme indifference, bringing Draco back to the present.

"The Weasel?" he asked shrewdly, already knowing the answer but trying to buy himself time.

If Weasley knew Harry was coming here he would have insisted on coming along to 'keep an eye' on Draco. He had been the lead investigator for the last half dozen inspections of Draco's shop and no doubt the instigator of several previous ones.

"Nope," Harry said a third time, serene and completely untroubled about keeping his best friend in the dark.

"So this is strictly off the books."

"Strictly."

"A favor, if you will," Draco added.

"If you will."

"Which means you would owe me one," Draco continued. 

"One," Harry agreed pleasantly. "Or possibly two."

"Shit," Draco breathed as he snagged another cup, absently admiring the aroma. Since when had Harry figured out all his favorite blends? "That bad, huh?"

"Yeah," Harry's face went serious and dark. "That bad. You in?"

Draco stared at a shelf filled with mortar and pestles. They ranged from large bulky granite ones covered in runes to tiny ones carved from a single gemstone to kitschy ones in the shape of frogs with their tongues thrust out. Sometimes he swore they were sticking them out at him.

"Yeah, alright," Draco said. "But I'm telling you right now if I end up with a fucking tail this time you're going to owe me more than double."


End file.
